Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/214

204 frotton, or by friction, or by rubbing in some form or other. One writer of rare simplicity has hazarded the opinion that the back of the paper, or the frotton, may have been soaped to facilitate the work. But these methods of printing books are imaginary and entirely impracticable. The shining appearance on the back of the paper does not prove that the prints were made by friction. The gloss could have been produced by any press which gave a hard impression against a harder surface. It could have been produced by rubbing or smoothing down with a burnisher the indentations of the lines on the back of the paper, as is sometimes done by pressmen of this day when they take too hard an impression. Some copies of the book show the results of hard impression. Two of the four copies of the Bible of the Poor in the possession of the British Museum present lines deeply sunk in the paper, as if they had been printed from a press. Jackson, a practical engraver on wood, who had large experience in proving wood-cuts, has unwillingly accepted the unauthorized tradition of presswork by friction, but he has candidly stated its difficulties.